National Court Reporter Association Information on Court Reporting

Words have wings. He said. She said. Who said? Said what? Spoken words are here and gone in an instant. For most of what people do, that's fine. Our memory, aided by an occasional scribbled note, usually gets us through.
But there are times and circumstances when we need to know and be able to research exactly what was said, by whom. This is especially true in the field of law, where property, freedom and even lives depend on who says what in pretrial depositions and in court.

There are other occasions when exact records of proceedings are valuable, such as administrative hearings, conventions and stockholder meetings.

And the process of converting spoken words into readable text has important applications in the growing field of television broadcast captioning, which enables millions of people with hearing loss to follow and understand live television programming, including news shows, sports events and emergency announcements.

Capturing and preserving important spoken information is the realm of work that falls under the general heading of "court reporting." It's a profession that traces its roots to a scribe who recorded speeches in the Roman senate more than 2,000 years ago (one of his shorthand devices, the ampersand, is on your computer keyboard). But it's a profession that's also as modern as today.

Here are some quick facts and a FAQ to help you get acquainted with the possibilities:

Court reporters (including deposition reporters and captioners) earn an average
of nearly $62,000 a year.

There are an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 court, deposition and captioning
reporters in the U.S.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that job
opportunities in this field will grow about as fast as the average for all occupations through 2010.

Only about 27 percent of the court reporters in the U.S. actually work in court.
Most of the rest are freelance reporters hired by attorneys to report depositions
of potential trial witnesses.

Captioning of live television shows is done by specially trained court reporters
called stenocaptioners. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and FCC rules
mandate that more programming be captioned to so that people with hearing loss can be informed through television. The demand for jobs in broadcast captioning is expected to triple by 2006.

What exactly do court reporters do in the legal field?
Whether they work in court or as freelance deposition reporters, court reporters capture the words spoken by everyone during the proceeding and, if requested by one or more of the parties, prepare a verbatim transcript of it. Attorneys use deposition transcripts to prepare for trial. And the transcript of the trial helps safeguard the legal process: When litigants want to exercise their right to appeal, they will use the transcript to provide an accurate record of what transpired during their case.
Official court reporters and deposition reporters are front and center at controversial or famous cases - criminal trials, millionaire divorces, government corruption trials, lawsuits against everyone from rock stars to business leaders. A court reporter not only records history but also contributes to it through realtime technology that keeps all parties in litigation working at a swift pace and that enables counsel to quickly analyze each day's events.


What is broadcast captioning and how does that relate to court reporting?
Broadcast captioners, also called stenocaptioners, use court reporter skills on the stenotype machine to provide captions of live television programs for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, through realtime technology that instantly produces readable English text. Stenocaptioners work for local stations and for national channels and networks captioning news, emergency broadcasts, sports events and other programming.
The federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 has some very specific mandates for closed captioning of local programs around the country with phase-in dates in 2002, 2004 and 2006. What this means for the reporting community is an enormous increase in the demand for realtime captioners to cover local news broadcasts all around the country, mornings, afternoons and evenings. We are already experiencing a severe shortage of qualified people in certain areas of the country and so have developed technology to be able to do the job from a remote site. In other words, a captioner in Atlanta, Georgia, can transmit their captions via modem to a television station in Lexington, Kentucky. This need for remote site captioning talent is only going to increase as we approach the final 2006 deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission. Moreover, the federal government has realized the importance of eliminating the shortage of captioners. In 2001, fourteen NCRA-approved programs received a portion of $5.75 million in federal grants to help continue or develop captioning training programs.


What else do reporters do?
A version of the captioning process called Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) allows court reporters to provide more personalized services for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Most deaf people lose their hearing after acquiring reading and speaking skills, and many of them do not become as proficient with a sign language as they are reading text. CART reporters accompany deaf clients as needed -- for example, to college classes -- to provide an instant conversion of speech into text using the stenotype machine linked to a laptop computer.

How much money can a court reporter earn?
A survey of members of the National Court Reporters Association in 1999 indicated the average income for respondents was $61,830. However, reporters' earnings depend on location, level of training, level of certification achieved, areas of specialization and other factors. In court reporting, earning potential often is limited only by the amount of time a reporter is willing to devote to the profession. Official court reporters usually earn a salary and a per-page fee for preparing transcripts. Freelance reporters are paid per job and receive a per-page fee for transcripts.
Salaried positions for stenocaptioners can range from $45,000 to $75,000, and independent contractors can earn from $36,000 to more than twice that amount, depending on the number of on-air hours. CART reporters can earn between $35,000 and $65,000 per year.


Where can I learn to become a court reporter or broadcast captioner?
The knowledge and skills to become a court reporter or stenocaptioner are taught at more than 150 reporter training programs, including proprietary schools, community colleges and four-year universities. You can view a list of programs that have met the general requirements and minimum standards for reporter training programs set by the National Court Reporters Association. Many of these programs offer distance learning options, so even if there is no reporting school near you, you can still attend class and obtain reporter or captioner training if you have access to the Internet or live near a satellite video conference center.

What sorts of questions should I ask a school that I'm thinking of attending?
The National Court Reporters Association's Council on Approved Student Education has prepared a list of questions to guide you.

I'm interested in court reporting as a career possibility, but what effect will technology have on the future of the profession?
No one has an infallible crystal ball. But the National Court Reporters Association expects the need for reporters to remain strong for the foreseeable future. A trained reporter using the latest realtime computer-aided transcription processes remains the fastest, most accurate way to turn spoken information into readable, searchable, permanent text.
This ability continues to have application in courts and in pretrial depositions, where most reporters work, and, increasingly, in the specialized areas of creating captions of live television programming and providing CART services for deaf and hard-of-hearing college students. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandates a tremendous increase over the next few years in the amount of TV programming that must be captioned. And deaf and hard-of-hearing students in colleges and universities all over the country have the right, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, to request the accommodation of realtime translation to assist them in their classes while attending school. One of the marvelous advances with emerging technology in the last decade is that we have eliminated distance as a barrier to access. Regardless of where you are, if you have access to telephone lines, you can provide this service; and conversely, wherever you are, no matter how remote a location, you can receive this service.

The Internet will affect how reporting services are provided as online video technology improves and more and more meetings, college classes, even depositions take place on the Internet. As in the face-to-face world, reporters will be in demand online to provide instantaneous text of those meetings in a searchable, easy-to-access medium.

Regarding voice recognition, no expert is yet predicting that we are anywhere close to having systems that recognize multiple speakers. Court systems are under great pressure to reduce costs, so virtually all of them have installed tape recorders in some courts. However, court reporters offer technological advantages of their own, namely the ability to produce readable text in realtime -- essentially the voice-to-print capability that voice recognition supposedly delivers, only reporters are more accurate.


Where can I learn more about court reporting?
Visit the National Court Reporters Association's (NCRA) Web site. There you will see information that working reporters find useful, as well as more about the history of reporting, the technology involved and more.

Where can I learn more about broadcast captioning?
You can learn a lot more about captioning by reading this article from the online archives of NCRA's monthly magazine, Journal of Court Reporting. There are also a number of of other online sources to explore. A good starting point is Gary Robson's Captioning FAQ. The larger captioning companies have informative Web sites, including The Caption Center, Vitac and the National Captioning Institute.

--COURT REPORTING INFORMATION FROM THE U.S. Department of Labor --

--COURT REPORTING INFORMATION FROM THE U.S. Department of Labor --

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Court reporters usually need a 2- or 4- year postsecondary school degree.

Demand for realtime and broadcast captioning and translating will result in employment growth in the occupation.

Job opportunities should be best for those with certification.

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Court reporters typically take verbatim reports of speeches, conversations, legal proceedings, meetings, and other events when written accounts of spoken words are necessary for correspondence, records, or legal proof. Court reporters play a critical role not only in judicial proceedings, but at every meeting where the spoken word must be preserved as a written transcript. They are responsible for ensuring a complete, accurate, and secure legal record. In addition to preparing and protecting the legal record, many court reporters assist judges and trial attorneys in a variety of ways, such as organizing and searching for information in the official record or making suggestions to judges and attorneys regarding courtroom administration and procedure. Increasingly, court reporters are providing closed-captioning and realtime translating services to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.

There are two main methods of court reporting: Stenotyping and voice writing. Using a stenotype machine, stenotypists document all statements made in official proceedings. The machine allows them to press multiple keys at a time to record combinations of letters representing sounds, words, or phrases. These symbols are then recorded on computer disks or CD-ROM, which are then translated and displayed as text in a process called computer-aided transcription. In all cases, accuracy is crucial because there is only one person creating an official transcript. In a judicial setting, for example, appeals often depend on the court reporter?s transcript. Stenotype machines used for realtime captioning are linked directly to the computer. As the reporter keys in the symbols, they instantly appear as text on the screen. This process, called communications access realtime translation (CART), is used in courts, in classrooms, at meetings, and for closed captioning for the hearing- impaired on television.

The other method of court reporting is called voice writing. Using the voice-writing method, a court reporter speaks directly into a stenomask?a hand-held mask containing a microphone with a voice silencer. As the reporter repeats the testimony into the recorder, the mask and silencer prevent the reporter from being heard during testimony. Voice writers record everything that is said by judges, witnesses, attorneys, and other parties to a proceeding, including gestures and emotional reactions.

Some voice writers produce a transcript in real time, using computer speech recognition technology. Other voice writers prefer to translate their voice files after the proceeding is over, or they transcribe the files manually, without using speech recognition at all. In any event, speech recognition technology is allowing voice writers to pursue not only court reporting careers, but also careers as closed captioners, CART reporters for hearing-impaired individuals, and Internet streaming text or caption providers.

Court reporters that use either method are responsible for a number of duties both before and after transcribing events. First, they must create and maintain the computer dictionary that they use to translate stenographic strokes or voice record files into written text. They may customize the dictionary with parts of words, entire words, or terminology specific to the proceeding, program, or event?such as a religious service?they plan to transcribe. After documenting proceedings, court reporters must edit their CART translation for correct grammar, for accurate identification of proper names and places, and to ensure that the record or testimony is discernible. They usually prepare written transcripts, make copies, and provide information from the transcript to courts, counsels, parties, and the public upon request. Court reporters also develop procedures for easy storage and retrieval of all stenographic notes and files in paper or digital format.

Although many court reporters record official proceedings in the courtroom, others work outside the courtroom. For example, they may take depositions for attorneys in offices and document proceedings of meetings, conventions, and other private activities. Still others capture the proceedings taking place in government agencies at all levels, from the U.S. Congress to State and local governing bodies. Court reporters, both stenotypists and voice writers, who specialize in captioning live television programming for people with hearing loss are commonly known as stenocaptioners. They work for television networks or cable stations, captioning news, emergency broadcasts, sporting events, and other programming. With CART and broadcast captioning, the level of understanding gained by a person with hearing loss depends entirely on the skill of the stenocaptioner. In an emergency, such as a tornado or a hurricane, people?s safety may depend entirely on the accuracy of information provided in the form of captioning.

Medical transcriptionists, discussed elsewhere in the Handbook, have similar duties, but with a different focus. They translate and edit recorded dictation by physicians and other health-care providers regarding their assessment and treatment of patients.

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The majority of court reporters work in comfortable settings, such as offices of attorneys, courtrooms, legislatures, and conventions. An increasing number of court reporters work from home-based offices as independent contractors, or freelancers.

Work in this occupation presents few hazards, although sitting in the same position for long periods can be tiring, and workers can suffer wrist, back, neck, or eye problems due to strain. Workers also risk repetitive motion injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome. In addition, the pressure to be accurate and fast can be stressful.

Many official court reporters work a standard 40-hour week. Self- employed court reporters, or freelancers, usually work flexible hours, including part time, evenings, and weekends, or they can work on an on-call basis.

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Court reporters held about 18,000 jobs in 2002. About 60 percent worked for State and local governments, a reflection of the large number of court reporters working in courts, legislatures, and various agencies. Most of the remaining wage and salary workers worked for court reporting agencies. Eleven percent of court reporters were self-employed.

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The amount of training required to become a court reporter varies with the type of reporting chosen. It usually takes less than a year to become a voice writer. In contrast, the average length of time it takes to become a stenotypist is 33 months. Training is offered by about 160 postsecondary vocational and technical schools and colleges. The National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) has approved about 82 programs, all of which offer courses in stenotype computer-aided transcription and realtime reporting. NCRA- approved programs require students to capture a minimum of 225 words per minute, a Federal Government requirement as well.

Some States require court reporters to be notary publics. Others require the certified court reporter (CCR) designation, for which a reporter must pass a State certification test administered by a board of examiners. The NCRA confers the entry-level designation ?registered professional reporter? (RPR) upon those who pass a four-part examination and participate in mandatory continuing education programs. Although voluntary, the designation is recognized as a mark of distinction in the field. A reporter may obtain additional certifications that demonstrate higher levels of competency, such as ?registered merit reporter? (RMR) or ?registered diplomate reporter? (RDR). The RDR is the highest level of certification available to court reporters. In order to receive the designation, a court reporter must either have 5 consecutive years of experience as an RMR or be an RMR and hold a 4-year baccalaureate degree.

The NCRA also offers the designations ?certified realtime reporter?(CRR), ?certified broadcast captioner? (CBC), and ?certified CART provider? (CCP). These designations promote and recognize competence in the specialized skill of converting the spoken word into the written word instantaneously.

Some States require voice writers to pass a test and to earn State licensure. As a substitute for State certification, the National Verbatim Reporters Association offers three national certifications to voice writers: ?certified verbatim reporter? (CVR), the certificate of merit (CM), and ?real-time verbatim reporter? (RVR). Earning these certifications may be sufficient to get licensed in the State. In order to get the CM or RVR, one must first earn the CVR. Candidates for the CVR must pass a written test covering punctuation, spelling, grammar, legal terminology, definitions, and more and also must pass, three five-minute dictation and transcription examinations that test for speed as well as accuracy. Passing the CM exam requires a higher level of speed and accuracy. The RVR measures the candidate?s skill at realtime transcription. In order to retain these certifications, the voice writer must obtain continuing education credits. Credits are given for voice writer education courses, continuing legal education courses, and college courses.

In addition to possessing speed and accuracy, court reporters must have excellent listening skills, as well as good English grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation skills. Voice writers must learn to listen and speak simultaneously and very quickly, while also identifying speakers and describing peripheral activities in the courtroom or deposition room. They must be aware of business practices and current events as well as the correct spelling of names of people, places, and events that may be mentioned in a broadcast or in court proceedings. For those who work in courtrooms, an expert knowledge of legal terminology and criminal and appellate procedure is essential. Because capturing proceedings requires the use of computerized stenography or speech recognition equipment, court reporters must be knowledgeable about computer hardware and software applications.

With experience and education, court reporters can advance to administrative and management positions, consulting, or teaching.

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Employment of court reporters is projected to grow about as fast as the average for all occupations through 2012. Demand for court reporter services will be spurred by the continuing need for accurate transcription of proceedings in courts and in pretrial depositions and by the growing need to create captions for live or prerecorded television and to provide other realtime translating services for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Despite the good job prospects, fewer people are going into this profession, creating a shortage of court reporters?particularly stenographic typists?and making job opportunities very good to excellent. Because of this shortage, voice writers have become more widely accepted as speech recognition technology improves and error rates decline. Still, many courts hire only stenotypists to perform court reporting duties, and because of this practice, demand for these highly skilled reporters will remain high.

Federal legislation mandates that, by 2006, all new television programming must be captioned for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. In addition, the Americans with Disabilities Act gives deaf and hard-of- hearing students in colleges and universities the right to request access to realtime translation in their classes. Both of these factors are expected to increase demand for court reporters to provide realtime captioning and CART services. Although these services forgo transcripts and differ from traditional court reporting, which uses computer-aided transcription to turn spoken words into permanent text, they require the same skills that court reporters learn in their training.

Despite increasing numbers of civil and criminal cases, budget constraints are expected to limit the ability of Federal, State, and local courts to expand, thereby also limiting the demand for traditional court reporting services in courtrooms and other legal venues. Further, in efforts to keep costs down, many courtrooms have installed tape recorders to maintain records of proceedings. Some jurisdictions have found the error rates associated with tape recorders to be unacceptable, bringing court reporters back to their courtrooms despite budgetary issues. Still, despite the use of audiotape and videotape technology, court reporters can quickly turn spoken words into readable, searchable, permanent text, so they will continue to be needed to produce written legal transcripts and proceedings for publication.

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Court reporters had median annual earnings of $41,550 in 2002. The middle 50 percent earned between $29,770 and $55,360. The lowest paid 10 percent earned less than $23,120, and the highest paid 10 percent earned more than $73,440. Median annual earnings in 2002 were $40,720 for court reporters working in local government.

Both compensation and compensation methods for court reporters vary with the type of reporting job, the experience of the individual reporter, the level of certification achieved, and the region of the country the reporter works in. Official court reporters earn a salary and a per-page fee for transcripts. Many salaried court reporters supplement their income by doing additional freelance work. Freelance court reporters are paid per job and receive a per-page fee for transcripts. Communication access realtime translation providers are paid hourly. Stenocaptioners receive a salary and benefits if they work as employees of a captioning company; stenocaptioners working as independent contractors are paid hourly.